Padraig Pearse

Denerick wrote: »

To be fair I wasn't talking about you. You clearly haven't canonised the man, like some here have.

Does that really seem like constructive posting on your part?

That wasn't the point you were making and you know it, you were making sly digs at other users.

Patrick Pearse seems to put lots of people thru and emotional wringer and like I say, as a guy I do not particularly like him as a man.

Just to recap.

A few issues do come up.

Did he really believe in blood sacrifice ?

Was he honest , I wouldn't trust him with money but as a member of a movement trustworthy and loyal to his collagues?

How much was he in control or not of the 1916 Rising. ? Was he a good leader ?

Was he a democrat ?

CDfm wrote: »

Did he really believe in blood sacrifice ?

this is a difficult question and one thats made a lot of by biographers of pearse and historians of the time. I understand the situation to be such that he had recently joined the IRB and was in his first revolutionary flush, but that might not be the case. Connolly ate him out of it (metaphorically) for making such comments and he never said or wrote something as crass or silly again. Apart from his IRB membership though Pearse was probably allowing himself to get swept up into the continent wide ideas of blood sacrifice which had been growing for at least two years before WWI. Many believed that a blood sacrifice of some kind was needed to renew their countries, and not necessarily to create a revolution but just as something that was expected.

How much was he in control or not of the 1916 Rising. ? Was he a good leader ?

I don't think he had much control, he was not giving out military orders during easter week (or what orders he gave were widely ignored). connolly was head of the dublin battalion which made him de facto leader of the armed forces. pearse was the president iirc, which had as much useful control as our president does now.

Was he a democrat ?

I don't know of any evidence to suggest he was not? There's never been any strong arguments to suggest any rebel leader from at least 1798 on was anything but a democrat, a consequence perhaps of Irish people's long term disenfranchisement under British rule.

CDfm wrote: »

Another few for you.

Did Pearse kill anyone. I have read an account of Connolly killing a police sergeant on the way from Liberty Hall. So presumably he was the first casualty (his identity must be known) and there was no turning back.The Rising was on.

I have never heard that connolly killed someone on the way to the gpo, although it could have happened. Where did you read it do you know?

O'Rahilly was the Irish Volunteers Quartermaster & gunrunnr and his was the most cinematic. Machinegunned down, dying love letter to wife from the doorway, and being left to die by the British.He was the man.

Afaik he was initially against the rising but when it kicked off he joined in. Sounds like an absolute legend and definitely needs a new biography (assuming there's even an old one).

Are there any accounts of Pearse killing anyone.

Pearse made a lot of claims to being a decision maker in his Court Martial,but in reality did he get involved with the Germans etc. That seems to have been Casement & Plunkett.

His trips outside Ireland, Belgium and US related more to his school than any political activity. Am I missing something.

Now, I am not saying he was not brave, but I would like to see thru the myths that surround him.

Connolly had definate political views and ideologies - had Pearse ?

Never heard of Pearse killing anyone, he might have fired a pistol out the window a couple of times but that's probably it.

I think he probably made claims to have had as much responsibility as possible to get others off execution charges, his brother was one who had little to no part in any of the plans or fighting but was executed anyways.

Pearse was a republican, that's an ideology isn't it? I don't know of any economic or social ideologies he might have held, he was left leaning in the sense that like many he sympathised with the working classes.

@brianthebard - the policeman shooting is from the Irish Times

, Helena Molony had left Liberty Hall with nine other women, all members of the Citizen Army. She was dressed in an Irish tweed costume with a Sam Browne belt slung across it. In it was a revolver. She and the other women had been given the guns that morning by James Connolly, who told them: "Don't use them except in the last resort".Around 11.50am, the women followed a detachment of Citizen Army men, under the command of the Abbey actor Seán Connolly up Dame Street and then turned left and marched up to the front gate of the castle. "Just then," she recalled, "a police sergeant came out . . . He thought it was a parade and that it would be going up Ship Street. When Connolly went to go past him, the Sergeant put out his arm and Connolly shot him dead."
Connolly, who "was excited because he had shot the policeman dead", shouted to his detachment, "Get in, get in". But the rebels, who seemed to Helena Molony unsure of what they were doing, hesitated. "In a flash, the gates were closed. The sentry went into his box, and began firing." The rebels withdrew into the adjacent City Hall. The first military action of the Rising had failed in its objective of capturing the castle. The first casualty was not in fact a sergeant but an unarmed constable, 45-year-old James O'Brien.


http://www.irishtimes.com/focus/easterrising/monday/

brianthebard wrote: »

That's Sean Connolly, I assumed you were talking about James Connolly. Sean led the attack on Dublin Castle and was killed by a fall from the rafters of a hall afaik.

FYI Captain Seán Connolly of the Irish Citizen Army - listed as the first Rebel fatality of 1916 (it's disputed whether or not he was killed by a british army sniper while hoisting the Tricolour over City Hall). Seán Connolly was an Abbey Theatre actor who became a captain in the Irish citizen Army. His men held City hall to disrupt British Army movements to and from the adjacent Dublin Castle. Eventually after a british army raid 26 bodies were removed, all apparently killed in direct combat.

He was also mentioned by W.B Yeats in his 'Three Songs To The One Burden' :

" Who was the first man shot that day?
The player Connolly, Close to the City Hall he died;
Catriage and voice had he;
He lacked those years that go with skill,
But later might have been A famous, a brilliant figure Before the painted scene.
From mountain to mountain ride the fierce horsemen."

Did any 1916 leader kill anybody

Denerick wrote: »

Do you know anything about James Stevens? Cos just... wow. I mean there are degree's of wrongness, but this is alternate dimension stuff.

When was he dictator of Ireland so?

My view of Pearse is that in terms of Irish nationalism he was a sincere patriot and Irish nationalist. Primarily a motivator, a mover of people through speech and the written word. You could argue he still is.

Here is one example of his work. I recommend digging up the Ronnie Drew narrated version of this from youtube.

The Rebel, by Patrick Prease,

Notes for Revolutionaries Vol 1, Foilseacháin an Ghlór Gafa, Belfast, 2005, pg 68-70

I am come of the seed of the people, the people that sorrow;
Who have no treasure but hope,
No riches laid up but a memory of an ancient glory
My mother bore me in bondage, in bondage my mother was born,
I am of the blood of serfs;
The children with whom I have played, the men and women with whom I have eaten
Have had masters over them, have been under the lash of masters,
and though gentle, have served churls.
The hands that have touched mine,
the dear hands whose touch Is familiar to me
Have worn shameful manacles, have been bitten at the wrist by manacles,
have grown hard with the manacles and the task-work of strangers.
I am flesh of the flesh of these lowly, I am bone of their bone I that have never submitted;
I that have a soul greater than the souls of my people’s masters,
I that have vision and prophecy, and the gift of fiery speech,
I that have spoken with God on the top of his holy hill.
And because I am of the people, I understand the people,
I am sorrowful with their sorrow, I am hungry with their desire;
My heart is heavy with the grief of mothers,
My eyes have been wet with the tears of children,
I have yearned with old wistful men,
And laughed and cursed with young men;
Their shame is my shame, and I have reddened for it
Reddened for that they have served, they who should be free
Reddened for that they have gone in want, while others have been full,
Reddened for that they have walked in fear of lawyers and their jailors.
With their Writs of Summons and their handcuffs,
Men mean and cruel.
I could have borne stripes on my body
Rather than this shame of my people.
And now I speak, being full of vision:
I speak to my people, and I speak in my people’s name to
The masters of my people:
I say to my people that they are holy,
That they are august despite their chains.
That they are greater than those that hold them
And stronger and purer,
That they have but need of courage, and to call on the name of their God,
God the unforgetting, the dear God who loves the people
For whom he died naked, suffering shame.
And I say to my people’s masters: Beware
Beware of the thing that is coming, beware of the risen people
Who shall take what ye would not give.
Did ye think to conquer the people, or that law is stronger than life,
And than men’s desire to be free?
We will try it out with you ye that have harried and held,
Ye that have bullied and bribed.
Tyrants… hypocrites… liars!


_______

These words were of course famously written across the walls of Kilmainham 'Beware the risen people' :

CDfm wrote: »

OK - but he wasn't readmuch when alive.

How do you know that out of interest? I know he had a pamphlet published in 1915/16, which I believe was a manifesto of sorts, or a collection of his articles, and as editor of the sword of light (I'm not bothered looking up the correct irish spelling) he obviously wrote plenty of articles and had a vehicle for his poetry if he wanted it. So I would question this assumption. Tbh there are many many poets from this period that you or anyone else here will not have heard of but were published often, and you're not missing out on anything. So it comes down to what did they do of historical importance to get noticed versus their enduring literary appeal.

What was his influence etc leading up to General Election 1918 when SF got 46% of the vote.

How was he portrayed.

As a martyr, all the executed leaders were, you could buy commemorative pictures/portraits of them within a few weeks of the Rising. Influence after his death however was restricted...

I don't know if his works were reprinted, some would still have been current and in circulation, many of the printing presses that were negative towards the British empire were shut down under the defence of the realm act (DORA) before 1916 and that act would have remained in place so publishing revolutionary documents would have been difficult on a wide scale. Its an interesting question though.